The original was good. Not great but good. This remake was absolutely FANTASTIC however. This was such a brutal, disturbing, terrifying film. It's a must watch if you're a horror fanatic. Do yourself a favor and watch this right now.

A suburban family who are driving cross country run afoul of a savage mutant clan in the middle of a remote desert. Director Alexander Ahja, who also co-wrote the hard-hitting script with Gregory Levasseur, brings a fierce take-no-prisoners attitude to the harsh and gripping premise, makes fine use of the desolate desert wasteland location, generates plenty of tension, takes time to develop the characters, adeptly crafts a few eerie moments (the crater filled with abandoned automobiles and a ramshackle house that's littered with mannequins rate as especially striking and unsettling set pieces), and delivers a handy helping of unflinchingly graphic gore. The sound acting from the able cast further keeps this film on track: Aaron Stanford as the wimpy Doug, Kathleen Quinlan as the spunky Ethel, Vinessa Shaw as the sweet Lynn, Emilie de Ravin as the perky Brenda, Dan Byrd as the sullen Bobby, and Tom Bower as a grizzled gas station attendant. Moreover, the mutants are quite grotesque and frightening, with Billy Drago as vicious patriarch Papa Jupiter, Robert Joy as the brutish Lizard, and Michael Bailey Smith as hulking beast Pluto registering strongly as the definite scary stand-outs. The startling moments of go-for-the-throat unsparing violence pack a ferocious punch. Both Maxime Alexandre's sharp widescreen cinematography and the shivery score by tomandandy are up to speed. A nice'n'nasty surprise.

I've never really been a fan of remakes but I'm pleased to say that this new version of the '70s horror classic is well worth a watch. French director Alexandre Aja (who cut his teeth on the grisly SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE) revels in the bloodshed and pain in this action-packed thriller which is essentially a film of two halves. The first half is slow paced and takes time out to introduce the central characters of the storyline. Camera-work is strong and stylish throughout and great use is made of the eerily desolate desert scenery. Because there's so much going on in the movie, there isn't really a great deal of characterisation; instead the characters of the protagonists are revealed through their actions or in-actions. The film has a 'survival of the fittest' policy whereby the strongest characters find their inner strength while the weaker ones fall by the wayside. Of course there are a couple of exceptions to the rule.The second half of the film begins with a nasty interlude in which mutants invade a caravan, rape a young blonde teenager, suckle a mother and threaten a baby with a gun. This is pretty depraved stuff and not for the squeamish. Afterwards, the last forty minutes of the movie show the human characters fighting back as best they can, and I'm pleased to say this part of the film really hits the mark, as well as in a similar film like HOSTEL. Aaron Stanford, a geeky 20-something, emerges as the film's true hero and the scenes in which he battles the mutants using a combination of luck and skill are tremendously fun. Aja piles on the bloodshed at every stage, with bloody shotgun blasts, axes tearing through flesh, impalings, and all manner of nastiness. The opening shot of a scientist thrown through the air at the end of an axe is a good forerunner to this latter carnage.Special effects in the film are excellent – but then they're by the typically excellent Greg Nicotero, so you'd expect them to be. The mutants are suitably weird looking, although they're nothing we haven't seen before (especially if you're familiar with other horror flicks like WRONG TURN). Robert Joy stands out as the chief mutant, a real psycho of a guy; a natural progression from his deformed character in LAND OF THE DEAD. The other supporting characters are good at being terrified, and I especially liked the sub-plot involving Ted Levine's character, a big tough guy who has the most awful fate imaginable. All in all THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake is entertaining stuff, not really disturbing or as scary as I had heard but instead standing as a great example of the 'survival horror' genre.

This is a review of the unrated version of the movie (the one not shown in theaters). According to sources, the unrated version has around 60 +/- seconds of addition footage (mostly violent content). Thought I'd share that tidbit in case anyone was curious!While many might have stopped reading by now because of the amount of high violent content, I have to admit I was entertained throughout the vast majority of the movie. It all sort of stems from how well you can sympathize with those being tormented. I personally found the family dynamics totally worked, siblings acted bittersweet to one another, the father was dead on (arrogant and the man with a plan), and together they felt real. Even if at times some of them were unlikable they still felt like the typical squad. Put them in a very tense situation by Mr. Aja and you have a fast-paced mutant thriller.This is an action-horror movie plan and simple. Characters fight against the mutants multiple times, they make traps, traps go off, chases ensue, one-on-one fight scenes, and many more aspects that make this an action type movie. There is little suspense to mention outside of first few scenes were the mutants move unnoticed. That being said, it was a pretty enjoyable film (as long as you can handle the violence) because of how fast paced the movie is. And by fast paced I mean once the carnage starts and the mutants make their presences known, the movie doesn't let up till the final image. This is a movie that creates its scares by visuals, from the grotesque looking mutants to the over the top gore displayed on the screen. So for me, the movie wasn't scary at all.So are you going to find this movie on a list of best horror movies of the past XX-amount years? Probably not, mostly because the movie substitutes suspense for gnarly imagery and in your face violence (which a lot of people aren't down with). That's not to say the movie is bad, but Aja (director) knows what he was going for with this one and who his target audience is (gore hounds). The Hills Have Eyes was created for those people who want visual stimuli and unrelenting violence, and the movie succeeds as such.